"And after that, I don"t believe they wanted any more," she said; and handed over the parts to Miss Craydocke to be tied together.
For this volume had had to be made in many folds, and Mrs.
Ripwinkley"s blue ribbon would by no means stretch over the back.
And by that time it was eleven o"clock, and they had worked four hours. They all jumped up in a great hurry then, and began to say good-by.
"This must not be the last we are to have of you, Miss Holabird,"
said Mrs. Ripwinkley, laying Rosamond"s shawl across her shoulders.
"Of course not," said Mrs Scherman, "when you are all coming to our house to tea to-morrow night."
Rosamond bade the Ripwinkleys good-night with a most sweet cordiality, and thanks for the pleasure she had had, and she told Hazel and her mother that it was "neither beginning nor end, she believed; for it seemed to her that she had only found a little new piece of her world, and that Aspen Street led right out of Westover in the invisible geography, she was sure."
"Come!" said Miss Craydocke, standing on the doorsteps. "It is all invisible geography out here, pretty nearly; and we"ve all our different ways to go, and only these two unhappy gentlemen to insist on seeing everybody home."
So first the whole party went round with Miss Hapsie, and then Kenneth and Dorris, who always went home with Desire, walked up Hanley Street with the Schermans and Rosamond, and so across through Dane Street to Shubarton Place.
But while they were on their way, Hazel Ripwinkley was saying to her mother, up in her room, where they made sometimes such long good-nights,--
"Mother! there were some little children taken away from you before we came, you know? And now we"ve got this great big house, and plenty of things, more than it takes for us."
"Well?"
"Don"t you think it"s expected that we should do something with the corners? There"s room for some real good little times for somebody.
I think we ought to begin a beehive."
Mrs. Ripwinkley kissed Hazel very tenderly, and said, only,--
"We can wait, and see."
Those are just the words that mothers so often put children off with! But Mrs. Ripwinkley, being one of the real folks, meant it; the very heart of it.
In that little talk, they took the consecration in; they would wait and see; when people do that, with an expectation, the beehive begins.
Up Hanley Street, the six fell into pairs.
Mrs. Scherman and Desire, Dorris and Mr. Scherman, Rosamond and Kenneth Kincaid.
It only took from Bridgeley Street up to Dane, to tell Kenneth Kincaid so much about Westover, in answer to his questions, that he too thought he had found a new little piece of his world. What Rosamond thought, I do not know; but a girl never gives a young man so much as she gave Kenneth in that little walk without having some of the blessed consciousness that comes with giving. The sun knows it shines, I dare say; or else there is a great waste of hydrogen and other things.
There was not much left for poor little Desire after they parted from the Schermans and turned the corner of Dane Street. Only a little bit of a way, in which new talk could hardly begin, and just time for a pause that showed how the talk that had come to an end was missed or how, perhaps, it stayed in the mind, repeating itself, and keeping it full.
n.o.body said anything till they had crossed B---- Street; and then Dorris said, "How beautiful,--_real_ beautiful, Rosamond Holabird is!" And Kenneth answered, "Did you hear what she said to Mrs.
Ripwinkley?"
They were full of Rosamond! Desire did not speak a word.
Dorris had heard and said it over. It seemed to please Kenneth to hear it again. "A piece of her world!"
"How quickly a true person springs to what belongs to--their life!"
said Kenneth, using that wrong little p.r.o.noun that we shall never be able to do without.
"People don"t always get what belongs, though," blurted Desire at last, just as they came to the long doorsteps. "Some people"s lives are like complementary colors, I think; they see blue, and live red!"
"But the colors are only accidentally--I mean temporarily--divided; they are together in the sun; and they join somewhere--beyond."
"I hate beyond!" said Desire, recklessly. "Good-night. Thank you."
And she ran up the steps.
n.o.body knew what she meant. Perhaps she hardly knew herself.
They only thought that her home life was not suited to her, and that she took it hard.
XIV.
"SESAME; AND LILIES."
"I"ve got a discouragement at my stomach," said Luclarion Grapp.
"What"s the matter?" asked Mrs. Ripwinkley, naturally.
"Mrs. Scarup. I"ve been there. There ain"t any bottom to it."
"Well?"
Mrs. Ripwinkley knew that Luclarion had more to say, and that she waited for this monosyllable.
"She"s sick again. And Scarup, he"s gone out West, spending a hundred dollars to see whether or no there"s a chance anywhere for a _smart_ man,--and that ain"t he, so it"s a double waste,--to make fifty. No girl; and the children all under foot, and Pinkie looking miserable over the dishes."
"Pinkie isn"t strong."
"No. She"s powerful weak. I just wish you"d seen that dirty settin"-room fire-place; looks as if it hadn"t been touched since Scarup smoked his pipe there, the night before he went off a wild-gandering. And clo"es to be ironed, and the girl cleared out, because "she"d always been used to fust-cla.s.s families." There wasn"t anything to your hand, and you couldn"t tell where to begin, unless you began with a cataplasm!"
Luclarion had heard, by chance, of a cataclysm, and that was what she meant.
"It wants--creation, over again! Mrs. Scarup hadn"t any fit breakfast; there was burnt toast, made out of tough bread, that she"d been trying to eat; and a cup of tea, half drunk; something the matter with that, I presume. I"d have made her some gruel, if there"d been a fire; and if there"d been any kindlings, I"d have made her a fire; but there "twas; there wasn"t any bottom to it!"
"You had better make the gruel here, Luclarion."
"That"s what I come back for. But--Mrs. Ripwinkley!"
"Well?"